


Love Is Not All You Need

by choicescarfsylveon



Category: Glee
Genre: Blaine Friendly, Canon Character Death., Finn's Death Meta, Gen, Goes AU during 5x01, Klaine Break-Up, Season 4 Meta
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-16
Updated: 2018-09-16
Packaged: 2019-07-13 00:28:52
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,174
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16006487
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/choicescarfsylveon/pseuds/choicescarfsylveon
Summary: In which Finn backpacks through Georgia, and Kurt says no.





	Love Is Not All You Need

**Author's Note:**

> Hey friends. This week I was recently sort of displaced by Hurricane Florence, which if you live in the U.S., you may have heard about. Silver lining, this gave me time off work and school to think about the SBAIY/Glee things I’ve been wanting to write and continue.
> 
> This fic was something I wanted to do to jog my writer’s gears loose after a month of block. Alone in the American South this week, much like his character would've been, I thought about how much I wish we could’ve seen Cory/Finn in more non-McKinley storylines, especially his months-long disappearance at the start of Season 4.
> 
> Plus, I wish the writers had Kurt decline Blaine’s proposal, maybe not permanently, but definitely in 5x01. They had a LOT of work to do before they made that decision. I believe the Kurt I know and love would’ve done the mature thing.
> 
> Kurt and Finn’s relationship is also everything to me. Let me know what you think if you read. <3

 

 

 

 To put it shortly, Kurt felt pressured. Being swept through Dalton’s ballrooms full of a hundred dancers putting a show on just for him, he was overwhelmed with emotion at the gesture, especially after the month he’d just had. He can’t fault Blaine for all of this; maybe he should, maybe for a lot of things, but he’s not going to get into the semantics of that right now. No matter what happens between them, he will always remember this part of their life, what Blaine’s given to him so far. He will always remember what Blaine said, never stop feeling like they are meant to find each other in every lifetime.

 

Blaine will always be significant, always Kurt’s person. Kurt just doesn’t know if he should marry him right now. Doesn’t know if he loves him that much.

 

What he feels more at the moment, much more significantly as his worry starts to consume him, is the tether that Finn’s always talking about. That’s because of the news; Kurt still doesn’t believe that Finn went back to Georgia. Doesn’t he have class this week? The body they found in that motel.

 

Some guy must just have his wallet, on this his apparent second backpacking through the marshes of the deep South.

 

The waiting game on results from the autopsy have Kurt in limbo. Among other things. He’s at the tiny hospital in Bethlehem, Georgia, hasn’t heard from Finn in three days.

 

He can’t possibly give Blaine an answer like this.

 

 

 

 

 

The first time Finn went rouge, he did it because Georgia wasn’t Ohio and he’d never been anywhere else. Somewhere different was better than somewhere nowhere. He didn’t think anyone was going to understand.

 

He also did it because he hoped it might clear his head. He hadn’t had a post high school plan, a real one, completely about himself, since, well, high school began, if he’s being honest. The football thing was fun and cool but he mostly did it because his mom was such a Buckeyes fan. Then came Glee club. Not since Rachel Berry has Finn not been obsessed with music. But he knows what he looks like. He’s a doughy guy, six-foot-too-tall and wildly uncomfortable in his body. He’s not gonna make it in show business.

 

Even though he’s fought his strong feelings for Rachel—how he feels whenever she harnesses all that power to sing him a love song—the fact is that she’s the brightest thing that’s ever been close to him. He’s made his life about her life for three years. Trying to act like the tether isn’t there is pointless.

 

Nothing he does will ever compare to the path that she’s on. That’s clear to him as he sits in a Waffle House at four a.m. in Bethlehem, Georgia, the smallest town he’s ever been in at just shy of 500 people. He’s been around for three weeks (he chose to stay because Bethlehem sounded Jewish and Jewish stuff reminds him of Rachel) because he’s not done clearing the fallen trees from the recent storm from the yard of Mrs. Beauford, the elderly lady who gives him $50 a day to help her around the house. Even with the gun wound to his thigh still making walking difficult, he feels more useful than he did in Glee club a lot of the time.

 

That’s what he misses most out here, though. Someone to talk to. He exists mostly in silence as he checks in and out of motels along the Georgia state line. He got a burner phone in case he needs it, but everyone he’s ever known still thinks he’s without any technology at basic training. They were already prepared to not hear from him for a while.

 

It’s kind of nice to be without a phone. He wonders though, if he wants to spend the rest of his life here, really, knows he should start making a plan before he gets stuck, money wise. Nights he has those thoughts is when the loneliness starts to settle in. He rarely talks to strangers, on hiking trails or in coffee shops or at ATMs, where he’s slowly depositing from the small sum of money his mom gave for graduation.

 

What he wouldn’t give to call his mom or Rachel sometimes. Listen to Rachel sing to him. He doesn't want to worry them. What he wouldn’t give to be alone in the world, the way he is now, except for maybe Rachel. The way he’s living is probably everything she’d hate most about life, though, and that’s why they’re not together. $6 breakfasts at Waffle House. Smoking rooms with questionable beds. Backroads, mosquitoes, hostels and tents on camping grounds. Shitting in the dark because the power goes out during Florida’s hurricane season. He sees her now across this table, pretty in two French braids, complaining about breakfast and instant coffee and how tired she is of sweating from the humidity, but also loving him. Because she does, no matter what.

 

That’s why he ran from her. Far away. Finn’s okay taking things day by day, living life slow. Country boy at heart. Rachel plans ahead, big city dreams, for decades; the older he gets, the more he knows she really is going to become mega famous someday, like, Lady Gaga famous. He doesn’t know if he can live like that.

 

He doesn’t know much about life at all, he’s realizing.

 

 

 

 

 

Kurt said yes on the staircase, heart overflowing, swathed in endorphins and kissing his boyfriend— fiance—in front of almost everyone both of them knew. He and Blaine left together, went to Blaine’s where they would have the house to themselves, and made love for the first time since the wedding, hot and heavy under the haze of light champagne and the rush of the public affair.

 

But afterwards, Kurt felt it. That doubt he felt the moment after he gave back in officially, when they hooked up as soon as humanly possible after Kurt’s flight to Ohio for Schue's wedding, Adam be damned, naked in the back of Blaine’s car. The doubt he felt every time a package or flowers arrived at the loft in New York, or at Vogue, that instinct in his head that says, “This doesn’t make you feel right. Trust yourself.” He’s since learned to push that doubt to the back burner, as buying into it’s probably what got them into this mess in the first place. He doesn’t want to be angry at his person anymore.

 

He’s let Blaine in again, as his friend. But his dad said something once that’s made him think about the proposal’s events; question it and pick it apart, the way the common sense in his brain tells him to, but he wishes he could ignore. Kurt’s junior year, he and his Dad were watching proposal videos on YouTube one night, one of Kurt’s favorite hobbies, and Burt told Kurt that his mother would’ve hated if he’d made their proposal a spectacle:

 

“Your mother told me, when I asked her ring size, ‘if you ask me in public, you better ask me again in private.’ What she meant is, ‘s not really fair to corner somebody into something like that. If they wanna say no, they feel like a jerk doing it in front of people.”

 

“We went from just friends to boyfriends to engaged in a little under a week,” Kurt says, smiling and wry as Blaine lies next to him watching the ceiling fan spin, post-coital, one day post-proposal. “I hope you’re not expecting a wedding by the end of this month.”

 

Blaine laughs, a beautiful sound. It’s so hard to feel like this, when Kurt does love him, so very much. “As much as I know you love weddings, we’ll take our time with this one,” Blaine says. “I want it to be everything you’ve ever dreamed of.”

 

 _I’ve always dreamed of marrying someone who’d never cheat on me_ _with a lighthouse_ _, but, y’know. Here we are._ He bites his lip, barring the thought, because he’s not sure they’re back on a level where he can make fun of him for something like this.

 

Kurt dismisses himself to Blaine’s bathroom around the corner. Closes his eyes, reliving how anxiously he slept and didn’t sleep the night before. He’d come to the sad realization that even though he said yes, he has no plans to marry Blaine; not the way he did before Blaine broke him, not tailors, florists, dates and honeymoon spots. There wasn’t going to be a wedding anytime soon; this thought pressed him until it was temporarily nonexistent during the hours he and Blaine spent this afternoon, leading up to the moment Blaine was finally riding him, passionate fire.

 

Coming down, he knows he needs to keep talking to either Finn or his dad about this; they help him when he’s conflicted like this. Finn had texted hours ago, asking Kurt how he was feeling. Kurt had shared with Finn his dad’s anecdote about public and private proposals. He texts Finn now asking if he can talk, and they do for a moment.

 

“ _You gotta have perspective,”_ Finn is saying to Kurt on the phone, over the background noise of Lima community college. _“That’s what me and Rachel are doing right now. Getting perspective on our own lives. I’m really proud of her, I know she killed that audition but I just—I can’t see her. Not now. I feel like I can’t even see my own self yet, y’know?_ _Plus I am actually kinda busy with school._ _”_

 

“I understand what you mean. She does wonder why you’d fly to New York on red eye to beat up her ho-bag of an ex, but not for her audition.”

 

Finn chuckles. _“That had to be done.”_

 

“Just make sure the two of you talk, before or after she finds out. You may forget, but you’re a big part of the reason she’s made it here today. If you hadn’t come back to Glee, and you hadn’t rallied the people who hated us into that little club, if she hadn’t loved _you,_ she wouldn’t’ve honed her talent as greatly or as much as she has. She did it, because she was in a room full of love all those years. You two started that room.”

 

“ _Yeah, I gotta call her again. It makes me sad when I talk to her 'cause I really love her. Love’s not always enough, though.”_

 

“Maybe it isn’t.”

 

“ _You still haven’t said your private yes to Blaine, have you?”_

 

“Not yet. I’m in his bathroom right now.”

 

“ _As someone who kinda went through it before, I don’t know. I think that means something.”_

 

It was the last time they would talk. It was so inconsequential, not something Kurt thought he was going to have to over-analyze for signs, probably for the rest of this life.

 

After Finn pointed out that Kurt was probably going to make Blaine think he was taking a shit, which Kurt said might be a good thing, since as he’s learned from Finn and Rachel, in their words, “taking a shit in front of each other was way harder than we expected,” he hangs up and comes out of the bathroom. It doesn't help his nervousness about his precidament, wondering if Blaine had been straining to listen in on his conversation.

 

“I didn’t blow up your bathroom,” Kurt says, as Blaine scrolls through his phone on the bed.

  
“So what were you thinking in terms of venues? I know you’ve always said you want a New York wedding, and I’m looking at the Instagram pages of celebrity wedding planners. They're saying you should probably call, like, a year ahead in advance for the best places, at least.”

 

Kurt’s heart sinks. No more plans.

 

“Oh, yeah. You’re probably right.”

 

 

 

 

Three days later, back in New York, Kurt still hasn’t said his private yes. That’s because, deep down, he knows the answer is no. They still haven’t even talked about the details of whoever it was that Blaine did who knows what with. They sort of just skipped that part and replaced the conversation with sudden, horny break-up sex at the wedding. That’s probably something they should finally break into before they do this big thing, but Kurt can’t touch it. Let alone talk or hear or think about Blaine even touching somebody else.

 

He hurts over that night. A lot. More than he thinks Blaine will ever know.

 

Kurt also hasn’t spoken to Adam at all since supposedly getting married; Adam still thinks they’re dating, that they’ll be hooking up after Kurt’s classes tomorrow like usual. He can’t tell Adam something like that over the phone, just like Blaine can’t not make _any_ inquiries into whether or not it made sense for Kurt to commit to getting married, logistically, right now—not unless that lovely dinner they had at Breadstix with that elderly lesbian couple was supposed to be nod or inquiry, and _really, Blaine?_ Kurt thinks, _a_ _sking someone else,_ _those_ _strangers,_ _to propose in front of me just days before you were g_ _oing to propose yourself_ _? Is that how afraid you are to just_ talk to me _before you do something_ _that’s going to change both of our lives?_

 

Kurt needs time. He doesn’t know he’s about to get it when Burt calls him, telling him about Finn’s disappearance in Bethlehem.

 

 

 

 

 

Telling Rachel he was going to the Army on the day of her wedding was the tipping point. He didn’t realize it until almost a year later. He was going to be rootless after that, not because he doesn’t _have_ potential, but because the guilt from doing something so harsh was going to consume him, make him do stupid things like move back to Lima and work at the high school where they met, his old shrine to her. Do really stupid things like stop caring about Will Schuester to the point that he actually kissed Emma Pillsbury.

 

Do stupid things, like leave the morning after making love to Rachel for the last time.

 

Puck’s sudden appearance at Lima community college contributes to Finn’s slow, almost stealth deterioration over the next few months. Going to class at first is mostly awesome, and then he’s kind of in a fraternity for a couple weeks, and then start the weeklong spans where he can’t get out of bed, drinks class off and just parties like Puck always used to in high school. He loves Puck, sometimes, but he’s also realizing that he’s started to outgrow his friend. He doesn’t want to have to say it, until the fight they have after Puck smokes weed in Finn’s room, almost gets Finn kicked out of the dorms.

 

Finn may have called Puck a “mooching freeloader.” Puck called Finn racist towards Jews and stormed off. Came back ten hours later, drunk, because he had no where else to go.

 

So Finn gets this spark, this feeling like he just wants to go back to Georgia, go rouge, go alone, the way he did the last time he felt his world was closing in all around him. He can transfer his Lima community college credits to a school out there. Or something. He should just do this. His life pans out when he does stuff on the fly.

 

Finn drives his old pickup truck straight from Ohio to Atlanta. Tells Puck he doesn’t want to see him for a few days, so Puck gets mad and leaves him alone. Doesn’t tell anyone where he is, not even Kurt or his mom, just like the first time when he got discharged. It opens his mind, being back out in the South; he feels peace. He leaves the window open in his motel room, letting the muggy humidity in, listening to the loud chirps of birds, the buzzing of crickets and mosquitos. He’s talked to everyone he needs to talk to. Said goodbye again. Kurt will know what is right with Blaine, and Rachel’s going to be a star, and his mom has Burt now. It’s okay for him to go.

 

 

 

 

 

It was a horrible, freak accident. Those people who slip down stairs, fall asleep at the wheel on their way home, get trapped beneath the fridge. Blunt trauma force to the head. He could’ve just fallen getting out of the shower. No one can know. Kurt vows not to question the how too much.

 

It’s hard when he knows that it’s certainly not off the table, what with Carole telling Burt about how much this feels so deeply for her like her husband’s suicide. That could just be because she’s grieving, and not because the goofy, down-on-his-luck-but-always-smiling Finn was going through something so heartbreaking.

 

Kurt knows how happy, hopeful Finn was to be going to community college, towards the end of it. He thinks about their last conversation, about Finn’s classes and the plan. It’s all he’s got left to hold onto.

 

Finn was sad about Rachel. That point cannot be denied, and all the weight it’s caused. Rachel doesn’t know if she’ll sing again. Kurt doesn’t want her to blame herself, but she’s only human. Of course, she’s going to wish that she had done more.

 

Kurt thinks about the day he saw Finn walk down the halls of McKinley in a fantastic red shower curtain and heels. After Karofsky and Azimio scattered, Kurt and Finn had walked quietly down the hall behind the rest of the Glee club, and Finn had held Kurt’s hand for a moment. It was quick, so quick that nobody noticed, but Kurt knew at that moment that he did love Finn for real. Not the crushy stuff, not the fantasy he had built in his head, but real, flawed, brother love. The kind of love that comes after the forgiveness of heartbreak. The part of his life where he was going to want Finn in that way was over. This was much, much better.

 

When Kurt and Finn were helping Sue pack the room at Jean’s convalescent home, they had a moment to themselves as Sue harassed the front desk person about the cold coffee in the cafeteria. Finn told Kurt about what he so eloquently called “the tether.”

 

“Now that you’re like, my family, it hurts to think of somethin’ like this happening to you, you know? Burt, too. There’s people you meet in your life that, after you meet ‘em, you know they’re gonna be in your life forever. That’s you, dude. I don’t know if I tell you enough, so. It’s like this tether. The ball goes around the pole, but it’s never gonna come off, no matter how far away.”

 

“I love you, too.”

 

“Yeah, that’s what I meant to say. I love you.”

 

 

 

 

 

"I love you, Blaine, and I'm really glad that we're starting to re-build our relationship. But with everything going on, with school. With Finn. I have to say no. I'm sorry."


End file.
